Welcome back to another fresh and interesting Splinterlands post, and I hope all of you are doing pretty well in your lives and enjoying a calm and pleasant day with your family and friends. Now, for those of you who are actively playing this strategy game without any panic in this crypto bear season, and working tirelessly on building your in-game card and asset collection, I think many of you are currently fighting hard in the ranked season arena as this ranked season slowly approaches its end. If we take a quick look at the season timer, only around 2 days and 10 hours are left before the ongoing ranked season meets its end. So this is the final stretch where every battle matters, and many players will be trying to secure their desired goal, whether it is to reach a particular league tier and push for those juicy league tier reward chests, or to aim for a glorious spot at the top champion leaderboard. Just make sure to use your battle energy carefully and maintain a good balance, so that you can maximise your season-end reward gains.
Now, talking about my own progress in the frontier gameplay mode in splinterlands, I am currently playing in the highest Gold I league tier with a trophy count of around 3,840. My target this season has changed a bit, and now I am only aiming for the 4,000 trophy mark. Since I missed playing for a few days earlier, I do not have enough time left to make a serious push for the leaderboard this time. So for now, reaching 4,000 trophies itself will be a satisfying finish.
On the other hand, if we take a look at the weekly Frontier raffle, I have currently collected a total of 33 entries. With only a handful of hours left before the raffle reset, I will try to grab around 6 or maybe 9 more entries tomorrow morning if possible. Let’s see how much I can squeeze out before time runs away. I have also shared the outcome of the last day's 3 foundation packs that I won by playing and completing all 3 missions yesterday. As you can clearly see, I have won 1 legendary card, 3 rare cards, including 2 archons and all the rest are common cards, which I think is quite a good pull considering I only opened 3 packs.
Now moving forward, let us come to the main topic of this post, as today I will be taking a closer look at another interesting monster from the Escalation mini edition. As you have already seen in the title and thumbnail above, today I will be talking about the Firebrand Ranger. So if you are interested in learning more about this monster card, let us dive deeper without any further delay.
The Firebrand Ranger is a monster-type card that was introduced in the game with the newest released Escalation edition mini cardset. This monster belongs to the Fire element and it comes from the Minotaur bloodline. By rarity, this card is a Rare monster, so you will require a total of 115 CC cards in order to upgrade it to its maximum level. Now, if you want to use this monster in battles, you need to spend 7 mana, which makes it a solid option for medium to high mana limit matches. The attack type of this monster is Magic, and apart from its magical attack power, it also comes with a strong combination of health, armor, and excellent speed, which makes it both dangerous and difficult to eliminate. At its maximum level, this monster gains a total of four abilities, which adds even more value to the card. Let us now take a closer look at its league-wise stats and abilities below to find out more about this monster card.
At level 2, this monster holds strong base stats that consist of 2 magic attack power at 4 speed with 2 armor and 6 health. Apart from these stats, it also gains an ability from its early level called Snipe. This ability makes it very useful for targeting vulnerable backline enemy attackers.
SNIPE – Magic and ranged attacks target the first non-melee enemy unit behind the first position.
When you upgrade this monster further to level 4, its stats improve significantly and it now holds 2 magic attack power at 6 speed with 2 armor and 6 health. At this level, it also gains another ability called Painforge. This ability can make the monster even more dangerous after taking certain types of damage.
PAINFORGE – Gains +1 power when damaged by Poison, Burning, or hit by an ally.
As this monster gets upgraded further and reaches level 6, its stats improve again and it now carries 2 magic attack power at 6 speed with 3 armor and 7 health. At this level, it also gains one of its most unique abilities called Shadow Focus. This creates an interesting strategic option where the monster can stop attacking in exchange for empowering the entire team.
SHADOW FOCUS – When in the last position, gains Camouflage, cannot attack, and all allied units gain +1 attack power and Determined.
Finally, when you upgrade this monster to its maximum level of 8, its stats improve further and it now holds 3 magic attack power at 6 speed with 3 armor and 7 health. At this level, it also gains another useful ability called Shield Ward. This ability makes the monster even more valuable when positioned behind your frontline tank.
SHIELD WARD – At the start of the battle, the unit in front of this unit gains Shield.
Last but not least, I think this monster can be extremely useful in many different types of battles. First of all, it comes with a strong defensive setup of health and armor while also carrying very high speed, which makes it capable of surviving multiple attacks and dodging some physical hits. Another big advantage is its Snipe ability, which helps target enemy backline non-melee attackers and remove dangerous support units faster. The Shadow Focus ability is also very interesting, because when placed in the last position it gives up its own attack but grants Camouflage while boosting all allied units with extra power and Determined. On top of that, the Shield Ward ability provides Shield to the monster in front of it, which becomes very useful against melee and ranged attackers. Overall, I think the Firebrand Ranger is a highly strategic and durable magic monster that can fit into several strong lineups. What do you think?
